At first glance, the electric Porsche “Taycan Cross Turismo” does not appear particularly climate-friendly: it is 1.96 meters wide and 4.97 meters long – making it six centimeters wider and seven centimeters longer than a current VW transporter. It weighs 2.3 tons empty – about as much as a male white rhino.
A Taycan Cross Turismo should be many things: A sports car with 476 hp. A family car with a 446 liter trunk and five doors. A four-wheel drive SUV. An electric car. Porsche advertises that the “Cross Turismo” is “CO2-neutral”. It has been available to buy since March 2021. The year in which over 50 degrees Celsius are measured on the American west coast; in which the forests of the Amazon – formerly known as “the green lungs of the planet” – for the first time more CO2 give than they receive; in which more than 170 people die in floods in western Germany. He is “the new Porsche” in the summer in which the climate catastrophe hits the German public.
It fuels the hope of consumers that both are possible: accelerating from 0 to 100 in 5.1 seconds and not having to have a bad conscience in times of forest fires and flood disasters. But it also nourishes the hope of the industry: that you can actually continue as before, only with the label “climate neutral”. We can also fly “climate-neutral” with Easyjet from Berlin to Fuerteventura. Aldi-Süd has “climate-neutral” milk. “Hofer” in Austria sells “climate-neutral” beef. You can even grill it on “climate neutral” charcoal.
This post is from the 7/2021 issue of the MIT Technology Review. The magazine is available in the heise shop. Highlights from the climate magazine:
Behind all this climate neutrality is a concept that is becoming increasingly popular with companies: carbon offsetting. As with all other products, CO is also produced2 in the production or consumption of a product in a rich country like Germany, England or the USA. Companies like Porsche, Easyjet, Aldi-Süd or Hofer then pay a certain sum to environmental projects in poorer countries that reduce CO2 should save. A ton of CO2 is expelled here, money is transferred, a ton is saved somewhere else.
Criticism of offsetting
Offsetting has been heavily criticized for 15 years. The arguments of opponents such as environmental activist and Guardian columnist Georg Monbiot are that the CO2 first of all, even if a product bears the climate-neutral label. Second, rich countries in Europe, the US, Canada and China produce far more CO2, than can be saved at all in the Global South in purely mathematical terms. And thirdly, it is only clear in a few offsetting projects how much CO2 they actually save. In 2006, Monbiot shaped the image of climate indulgences. “By selling us a clear conscience, offsetting companies are undermining the necessary political struggle to tackle climate change at home,” Monbiot said.
The criticism is currently supported by research by the weekly newspaper ZEIT and the British daily newspaper Guardian. have editors the subject of CO2 certificates with a particular focus on corporations that claim to be “climate neutral”. These include Disney, Netflix, Shell, Boeing, Bayer, SAP and many other companies that have acquired certificates from forest protection projects that do not lead to any reduction in CO2 to lead. Problems become apparent in discussions between the two media houses and several actors involved in trading in the certificates. It is about the role and standards of the world’s leading certifier in the market, Verra. The evaluation suggests that over 90 percent of the certificates from the projects examined do not contain any CO2 save on. It is therefore a volume of 89 million tons of CO2.
